Price Of Love
by low-key-screaming
Summary: (First Fanfic) Bran has lived for a long time as a werewolf and the only way to control it is with a mate. But the human can't afford to love someone again, so he found someone he couldn't love that would satisfy the beast. Yet, things don't always go as planned.
1. Prologue

***This is a work of pure fiction. These characters are not mine nor are cannon. Anything that is like to real events, people, or writings***

It was the sound of rain that awoke Bran. The soft pitter patter dragged him slowly from the dreamless sleep he had managed to accomplish. Familiar scents wafted to him as a reminder that this was home and there was peace for a few moments. Then it woke within him, the beast. Its presence was just there, a roaring storm within him that beat at his control and caused him to awake fully. The beast was restless and craving violence that it would not receive. Not in the way it demanded, but there were other ways to break the beast's lust for violence. So, Bran arose from his bed and headed toward the room that held his wife, Leah.

Wife. Not mate or even lover for those were two things he could not allow himself. That would require an amount of trust and love he could not give. Yet, the beast within him demanded someone but had not specified. Leah was a compromise between man and beast. A wife for the physical need the beast craved and a person Bran knew he could never love for she was too vain for his liking. After all, when he was still human, being married did not need love.

There were times that he risked loving her. Such as times when he saw Leah asleep. So peaceful and soft looking. Potential to love, but he couldn't allow that. And thankfully it was only times when she was asleep that he could love her. When she was awake he found her tolerable at best.

It was not kind though. Not to Leah or his pack, but necessary. Necessity seemed to be a common theme in a great deal of things throughout life. And so it was necessity that drove Bran to close the door and cross to his wife, who had awoken at the door's opening, and feed the beast with her.

When he was finished the beast slept but the man didn't. Something kept sleep away despite the time of night. 3am could technically be morning though. All the same, he could not find sleep again. Both his wife and his wolf slept. But at 3am Bran found himself awake and waiting for…something. Not something, but someone. Not that he knew who he was waiting for exactly. Yet there was still a strange sense of longing. It was a fitting time to be awake then. For only the lonely and the loved are awake at such a time.

Bran couldn't afford to be either though.


	2. Chapter 1

***This is a work of pure fiction. These characters are not mine nor are cannon. Anything that is like to real events, people, or writings***

The sun steaked through the window and lit the room as Bran awoke for the second time. He had fallen asleep in the midst of his thoughts without even noticing it. Now the clock read 6am, an acceptable time to get up without anyone thinking it odd, even if the sun would not yet rise in little over an hour. That was Montana though, especially in winter. So he got up and went to grab his clothes, only to stop at a realization. Turning back to the bed, he found that Leah was gone just as her scent in the room had told him. That was odd seeing as Leah slept in almost every day.

After dressing himself in last night's clothes, he made his way downstairs to the main floor. His foot hit the last step went it hit him unexpectedly. It came from within the pack bonds, a wolf was injured. With a deep breath, Bran gathered his wits about him and entered the pack bonds in search of the issue that had stuck him. Music gather about him as the pack bonds became clearer. Faint songs flowed about showing each wolf he had. His own song was louder than the others.

The first bonds he checked were those of his sons, Charles and Samuel. His youngest son, and also his killing arm, was recently finding issue in his job. Ghosts were haunting him, Charles had confessed, and it did more damage to him that it would to the average. With shaman and witch blood in him the dealings made sense. But when Bran checked his son's bond he found it as fine as ever. Anna was fine as well he understood and left them to each other as soon as he could.

Samuel was the next he checked. His son was almost as old as himself and quite powerful. A few years ago that age and power had caused him to feel out of the world. Thankfully Mercy had been there and kept him alive until he found an old friend, and mate. He could have lost his son then. Yet, after checking that bond, he found him fine as well.

It took him awhile to understand what had happened. He checked the bonds to his immediate pack and those to Mercedes, because God knew the trouble she got into. Then Bran checked his own and found something missing. A bond that should be connected to his own, a bond that should be connected to his pack. Leah. But why would it be gone?

The reality hit him like a brick as he connected the pieces. She had been gone this morning from the bedroom, and now he found her gone from the pack bonds. That wasn't possible though, he'd have felt her leave. He should have felt her leave. They were bound together…unless the bond wasn't enough. True it had been built of necessity, not a strong binding, but that didn't mean…

The beast within him gave a mournful sigh. It had felt her leave it seemed. Of course it would since it was the wolf that had accepted the bond. So with another deep breath, Bran found her scent and followed it. He followed it out the door and too where one of the car should have been. Tracking a car could take time in human form, but not as the wolf. If what seemed to have happened was true though, that meant the wolf was the last thing he should become.

It took Bran a good amount of time before he found the car. It had been stopped by the side of the road as if in haste. With one sniff inside he knew Leah had been here but not in a while. Thankfully it was still winter, so tracking her footsteps was easy. So he followed them into the woods that were common for Montana. And he followed them, and followed until he reached the crest of the hill. Upon looking down from there he saw what had happened. There his wife lay in the snow, face first, with a shotgun next to her.

The universe had a sick sense of humor it seemed. For Bran held him dead wife underneath the cover of stars. Stars that seemed to be watching him, but he couldn't see them. All he saw was the dead woman he held, the one thing he told himself he would not come to love. Yet, there as he knelt, his heart broke once again as it had many times before.

A sick sense of humor indeed.


End file.
